


Extramundane

by Iamsoashamedofmyself



Category: Spooky!Lads - Fandom, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: First Person, Gen, Is Kevin autistic coded? Fuck yeah. But you can just pretend u do not see it, Pyromania, Unreliable Narrator, attempted self harm? I suppose???, but just to be sure it’s there, identity crisis, im so ducking bad at tagging shit I’m sorry, its not framed in an “I want to hurt myself way”
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:14:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27679246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iamsoashamedofmyself/pseuds/Iamsoashamedofmyself
Summary: Kevin has always been a little bit strange. He’s got this aura that just makes everyone uncomfortable and on edge. If only he knew what it was.Spooky!Lads AU belongs to alittlesliceofcucumber on tumblr
Relationships: But that wasn’t intended, None, unless you wanna read it as romantic
Comments: 9
Kudos: 43
Collections: Spooky!Lads AU





	1. Alienated

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! So, a few things:  
> 1) the original creator of this au has stated multiple times that the fictionalised versions of the lads are completely seperate from the real people, and any portrayals of them are not reflective of the real deal either.  
> 2) Just consider this to be level 2 cannon. If the OC of the Spooky!Lads au says anything that contradicts this fic, she is right before I am  
> 3) Pretty much the only reason this is in chapters is for the ~drama~

I was not normal.

Don’t get me wrong, I always knew that there was something off about me. The day I could think for myself was the day that I knew that I didn’t quite fit in. I had accepted it. But that didn’t mean I was okay with it. 

You see, I got pulled out of school at a pretty young age. It wasn’t quite because I wasn’t learning anything (although I did struggle a lot), it was more because no one understood me. I got bullied a hell of a lot, and the people who didn’t bully me just outright avoided me — some of them even refused to do group projects with me. There was no kid in that hell-hole that gave me a break. The teachers weren’t much better either: They never particularly knew what to do with me, and most times when I acted out (which was a lot), I just got sent straight home. No warning. No time out. Not even a detention. They just made me leave.

I left for good on my own terms, though. My mum and Dad discussed me a whole lot, and one time, I overheard them talking about how I was doing at school. That was when they asked me if I wanted to leave school, and I told them yes. So from then on, my mum taught me all the basics, like reading, maths, and science; and my dad would take me out into the woods for training every weekend. By training, I mean Monster Hunting.

It never felt right, but I was young and didn’t know what I was doing. I usually ended up losing my dad on purpose and just hanging out in the woods, playing with bugs and sticks until he found me again (that’s one cool thing about myself: I can make my own fun). He’d drag me back to the house, no matter how much training we’d done, and he’d talk to my mum again. About me.

That was the worst... when people talked like that about me, behind my back. “What’s wrong with him?” “What do we do with him?” “It’s like he doesn’t listen.” “He’s just so strange...”

Being an only child with no friends, who couldn’t even trust their parents, I had no one to go to. I was so, so lonely. Even if I still lived with my mum and dad, I felt like I was all alone.

A while back, someone taught me a word that perfectly described how I felt: Alienated. Yeah, that was it. I certainly felt like an alien — like I didn’t belong here. I didn’t feel at home here. It never felt right. I couldn’t have been human.

So the day I turned 18, I moved out.


	2. Playing with fire

It was tough living alone, especially when you haven’t had that much education and weren’t given any independence (no one let me do anything. They didn’t know what I could or couldn’t do). But I got by. As weird as it sounds, I felt a bit less alienated, even though the only human contact I had was with the cashier at the supermarket. I felt like I was moving in the right direction — but I knew I couldn’t isolate myself forever. I’d drive myself crazy. The few times I did manage to have a normal interaction with people were the best memories I had, and I had a craving for more of that. So I joined a club.

It didn’t last, though. 

I will never forget that night; it was the worst night of my life, and I don’t think anything could top it. I was at a club meeting (we alternated who’s house we met up at, and thankfully, this one wasn’t at mine). And it’s not like I ever felt particularly accepted in that group, but that night especially... Man, I felt so out of my own head. People were yelling and arguing with each other, the music hurt my ears, every light was so bright in the dark room; I just couldn’t handle it. I retreated to the bathroom like I always did, and locked the door as I paced around the room.

I don’t remember why, but I took the matchbox that sat next to the candles on the sink, and I lit a towel on fire. The way the flame moved, the way the smoke rose and curled against the roof, the way the heat seemed to bounce off the surface of my hand as the flame flickered. I was mesmerised. I was ecstatic. I didn’t feel so abnormal, because I was focused on that fire — the one that was spreading up the walls.

That’s the part I remember the least of: when they found me and called the cops. I just ran for my life. I ran from the bright flashing lights in the dead of night, and hid around a corner when I couldn’t hear the sirens anymore. But for god knows what reason, I panicked, and ran a little further. Didn’t even look both ways before crossing the road.

Then, I was lying on my back, in the middle of the street. Sobbing. Clutching my shoulder and sobbing. It started to rain as I laid there in the middle of the road, and I couldn’t even move because I was just in so much pain. My knee hurt so bad, man. So did my shoulders. And my jaw. And my heart, too...

Looking back on it, that accident was really just the straw that broke the camels back. I was so hopeless, so lost, so miserable, and I hadn’t let it out. Every memory of embarrassment and failure finally caught up to me, and it just came pouring out. 

And when I couldn’t cry anymore, I got up and limped back to my house. Didn’t bother calling an ambulance. It’s not like they could fix me, anyway.


	3. New friends, new me

I was stuck like that for a while — being in pain, I mean. It’s not fully better nowadays, but at least it ain’t as bad as the few weeks after I got hit.

Those were the most miserable weeks of my life; I spent most of my time bedridden, and when I got up, I was reminded why I didn’t do that in the first place. After a while, though, I forced myself not to live like that. I got up each day, and did a lap around my room. And when that got easy, I did two laps. And then, it ended in me going for walks through the woods: Never the ones dad use to take me training in, though. I still felt a bit guilty about all of that.

Speaking of my parents: I lost touch with them. I’m only half upset about it, because on one hand, I don’t ever have to interact with them again or listen to them ramble on about how I’m the only one that can carry on the O’Reilly legacy. But also, I felt a bit betrayed. When I left home, it was like they had abandoned me. Like they had full intentions to disown me when I moved out. It’s not that I missed their company, I just felt like I wasn’t worth sticking around for, and that’s why they left.

I think around then was when my hobby of arson started. It was addicting. For once in my life, a label finally applied to me — granted, Pyromaniac was not a very nice thing to be called, but it felt nice to say with full confidence that I was something. I lit a ton of stuff on fire: it started as just regular campfires in my backyard or the woods, then it grew into regular old arson in the back alleys of town. That’s where I met Dan: the first person to ever care about me.

He happened to stumble by the back alley I was in, since he probably smelled smoke and heard me laughing with joy. I won’t lie, I was scared shitless, ‘cause I thought he was gonna call the cops on me. 

But get this — he stuck around and talked to me. He actually had a conversation with me! And no one even forced him to. It was a quick chat, where he mostly just asked what I was doing and if I was gonna be okay, but oh man... I didn’t stop smiling until I fell asleep that night. For a moment, I forgot how people usually reacted to me: discomfort, fear and hostility.

We ran into each other a bit more, and I learned some things about him. First, his name. And then, the fact that he was a goddamn vampire! Could you believe it? I knew monsters were real, and so did everyone else, but it was just so strange that he had stopped by to talk to me so often. 

Over time we became friends, and even met a few more monsters that joined our little group. Daithi, who’s a ghost. His cyborg friend, Brian. And Sean, a werewolf who almost tried to kill me (It’s okay. I’m over that now).

Those guys... they were great. I wish I could say more about how much I love them, but I don’t think I have the vocabulary for it. They’re so much fun, and so accepting of me and the weird aura I give off. Dan helps keep my pyromania under control, Sean and Daithi are the best to just fuck around with, and Brian and I have the shared trauma of getting hit by cars (that’s not the only reason I love him, though).

I trust those guys more than I’ve ever trusted anyone, which is why it hurts so bad that I still don’t feel like I belong. I ditched my old friends to hang out more with the lads — as human as I technically am, I fit in better with a bunch of monsters than I do other humans.

So why the hell do I still feel so alienated?


	4. The demon

I remember one night, it was pretty late, and I was hanging out in Dan’s mansion with the other lads. And they started joking around about me. I won’t lie and say it wasn’t funny, but as soon as I left to go home, it really ran deep and... it kinda hurt.

“Let’s be real: even if we’re all literally monsters, Kevin’s still the least human out of all of us!” 

“Are we even sure that he’s human? I mean, he’s got those sharp canines... maybe he’s a vampire?”

“But Dan’s a vampire and he doesn’t have an obsession with fire like Kevin does!”

“Maybe he’s a fire demon? Or some sort of entity of chaos, hell bent on destroying the world!”

I was running on autopilot as I took the bus home. And I only came back down to earth when I found myself staring at my reflection in the scratched bathroom mirror that I was yet to replace.

I stared at my reflection, my hands on the edge of the sink as I studied every little detail of my face. I picked apart every bit of it until it morphed into something that wasn’t even human. I could barely recognise myself anymore.

...

What even was I?

I couldn’t have been human. I didn’t fit in well enough to be one. I had no supernatural powers of my own, but I could sing pretty well, so maybe I was a siren? I never even learned how to swim, so that wasn’t it either. Maybe I was some sort of demon... Maybe I had something evil inside me, that was making everyone uncomfortable — making me set everything I saw on fire. It was making me frantic. It was making me paranoid. It was making me chaotic and dangerous to all of my friends that I worked so hard to make.

I had to get it out. I had to kill it. The only way I knew how.

With fire.


	5. The guardian angel

I remember the snap of my lighter. The spark of flint against steel. The intoxicating smell of lighter fluid. The heat of the flame as I brought it closer to my chest.

I felt the panic rise in me — it must have been the demon. It must have been scared I was going to kill it. Dad taught me a load of different ways to kill a demon. Fire was one of them. Fire was the only thing I had — it was the only thing I was useful for.

My hand started to shake as I brought it closer to my chest, pulling down the neck of my shirt to expose a bit of it. 

“You did this to me,” I growled at the horrible feeling in my chest. “You made my life a living hell. You turned me into this... this freak...”

My breaths got louder and deeper, and I wasn’t sure if it was me or the demon causing that. In my head, I remember apologising to it: I told it I was sorry things turned out this way. I was sorry I couldn’t save both of us. But I was so desperate to get rid of it. It bashed against the inside of my soul, and screamed to be spared. It didn’t want this. I didn’t want this. I just wanted to be accepted. I just wanted to be loved—

That was when Dan came tumbling through my window, transforming out of his bat form as he tackled me to the ground of the cramped and dirty bathroom. 

“Kevin! What the hell are you doing!” He screamed at me as he snatch the lighter from where I had dropped it. “The number one thing you cannot set on fire is yourself, remember?”

“I was gonna set the demon on fire, not me,” I spat back, not running my thoughts by myself before saying them aloud. 

Dan shot me this look; one that was half confusion and disgust, like the ones I had been given my whole life, and the other half was worry — I almost couldn’t recognise it.

“What demon?” He asked me. “Did you get possessed? When? You know the lads and I would—”

“It’s always been here, Dan!”

Sometimes, you’ve gotta feel worse before you can feel better. And let me tell you, I felt horrible when I watched Dans face morph from annoyance to sheer horror as the dots connected in his mind and sat up so I was no longer pinned to the ground.

“Kevin... this isn’t about...”

I scoffed, even though I really shouldn’t have, but I was so pissed off and emotional that it didn’t really matter to me in the moment. “Of course it’s about what you and the lads said!” I borderline yelled. 

Dan laid his hand on my shoulder, and I would be lying if I said it wasn’t great to finally have someone comfort me like that. “You know we were just joking around,” he told me gently.

“Well it’s not a joke to me!” I cried. There were tears forming in my eyes and I started to choke on my words. “I’ve been like this my whole life, and you think you can just joke about it like I won’t even care? It’s the one thing I hate most about myself and you just wanna... you just—” 

It had been so long since someone hugged me. The last person I got a hug from was from my mum, when I was really young. The lads had always slung an arm over my shoulder as we sung those stupid campfire songs, but now—

Dan had fully wrapped me up in that all-consuming hug of his — it was a lot colder than books made it out to be, but maybe that was just because vampires don’t have much body heat. It didn’t change the fact that I felt warm. I felt like I was on fire; like the demon in my chest was actually some sort of guardian angel, who’s mission was to make sure I found a group of friends who loved me.

“Kevin,” Dan said, and just hearing him say my name with such care made me let out a small sob. “You know that we don’t care what you are. We’re still gonna be your pals.”

Of course— of course they were. He first met me in a back alley while I was setting fire to a bunch of old crates. If it were anyone else, he would have called the cops and ran for his life! But no. He talked to me. He came back, too, and even introduced me to a bunch of other people who have never let me down. Of course they loved me. Of course they did.

But no matter how much my friends cares about me, it would never change the fact that I was still such a mystery, though. It wasn’t going to help the weird aura around me that caused all sorts of weird happenings. But it’s not like I’m going to change anytime soon. I’m not saying it won’t matter — because it will. One day, I’ll find out exactly what this ‘Kevin Effect’ is, and I’ll get just as many answers as I will new questions. I just know now that I don’t need to rush it, because I have so many great friends who will always be there to help me through it, and also keep me from setting random shit on fire.

I think I’m okay with that.


End file.
